Post-It Notes & Toilet Paper
by chelseabsb93
Summary: A very long one-shot that takes place right after Ripley's diner proposal. Hughes doesn't know how to react to it, and her friends are no help. Thankfully, one of her friends knows exactly who she should talk to.


Marriage? Vic couldn't even believe the words came out of her mouth, or Ripley's for that matter. Sure, it would fix their problems with HR, but were either one of them really ready for it? And did they really just want a marriage license at the courthouse, or a 'toilet paper wedding' as Vic began calling it. Her best friend was of no help, as he wanted her to have unicorns and rainbows because he thought she deserved the world. She understood where he was coming from, but it did not help her decision in the least. She decided to ask one of her other friends for advice, one that hopefully didn't have a brain full of unicorns and rainbows when it came to this subject.

"Hey Andy!" Vic smiled, walking over to her friend who was grabbing a snack from The Beanery.

"Hey." Andy replied. She noticed Vic looked different. "You are way to happy this morning, even for you. What's going on?"

Vic grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and joined her friend at the table.

"Ok, so you know I've been seeing someone, right; someone I should not be seeing." She kept things discreet. Andy knew who she was talking about, but other than Travis and Gibson, nobody else did, and she did not want them finding out by overhearing this conversation.

Andy nodded, taking a bite of her apple.

"Well, in order for us to keep seeing each other without repercussions and so that we don't have to keep hiding, he suggested marriage."

Andy nearly choked on her apple. "I'm sorry, did you say marriage?!"

Vic nodded. "Yeah but not like white dress and flowers type marriage, but just like courthouse and piece of paper type marriage. Although after talking with Travis he thinks we should do the whole big fancy white dress type wedding rather than a crappy toilet paper wedding, but I never saw myself as the white dress wearing type or the marrying type at all! So now that it's even on the table I don't know what I want, and I was hoping you could tell me. I mean you and Gibson almost did get married."

Andy took a minute to process everything before replying. "Actually, I ran as soon as Jack proposed, so I'm probably not the best person to help you with this."

Before Vic could reply, an idea popped into Andy's head. "But, I do know someone who could definitely help you."

Andy wrote down the information of the person in question and handed it to Vic before getting called away to an accident scene. Vic put the paper in her pocket and ran out to her own call. After shift, Vic got in her car and drove to Grey+Sloan, which was where Andy said to go. Since it was the only entrance she was used to, she went through the ER.

When she walked in, the leading trauma doctor instantly recognized her. "Hughes? We didn't hear anything about you bringing in a patient."

"Oh, hi Dr. Hunt. No, I'm off shift. I just don't know this hospital very well and this was the door that was most familiar." Vic rambled. "I'm actually looking for Dr. Grey. Is she available?"

Dr. Owen Hunt directed her to the general surgery floor where Dr. Grey would most likely be. She thanked him, ran onto the elevator, and got off on the floor Dr. Hunt said. Since she didn't see Dr. Grey when she glanced around, Vic asked the nurse sitting at the desk.

"Hi. I'm looking for Dr. Grey, have you seen her?"

"Hughes?" Vic could her someone questioning behind her. "Are you ok? Is there something wrong?"

Dr. Grey's voice sounded concerned. Firefighters and medics usually stayed in the ER, so for Vic to come all the way up here looking specifically for her, Meredith Grey thought something was seriously wrong.

Vic turned to greet Dr. Grey. "Oh, uhm, yeah. Health-wise I am fine. I was just wondering if I could speak to you for a moment…in private."

Meredith could tell there was something on the girl's mind. For some reason she had become the one everyone brought their issues too, and I guess her services now included helping the Seattle Fire Department.

"Come on, let's go in here." Meredith escorted Vic into the doctor's lounge. She sat on the couch, gesturing Vic to come join her. Vic did as she was told. There was a small silence between the two of them before Vic spoke up.

"Did Andy tell you anything about why I came here?"

Meredith shook her head. "No, but I have a feeling you're going to."

Before her brain could stop her, Vic blurted out everything she'd been going through. Her relationship with Ripley, his proposal, the unicorns and rainbows versus toilet paper debate, all of it.

"I just don't know what to do and Andy said you might have some insight for me."

Meredith smiled. She knew exactly why Andy sent Vic to her. "I do. Andy sent you to me because I also had what you're calling a 'toilet paper' wedding. Only mine wasn't on toilet paper; my husband and I got married on a Post-It Note."

"A post-it note?" Vic giggled slightly. "Really?"

"Yup. Derek and I both never really cared about having the big wedding, but to appease our friends and family we went along with the whole white dress church big party thing."

Vic looked confused. Meredith had just said they got married on a Post-It, and now she's talking about her huge wedding.

"However, that wedding never belonged to me. One of my best friends at the time was going through a battle with brain cancer that had spread. To keep her occupied during treatment she offered to plan the entire wedding. The closer to the wedding it got, the more Derek and I, as well as the rest of our friends, realized that it wasn't going to be our day, and we were completely ok with that. My friend got to marry the love of her life, and my best friend, on that day. And I got out of having a ridiculous wedding."

Meredith giggled a little at the end. She was actually kind of glad things happened the way they did. She loves her Post-It note marriage more than any extravagant party that could've been thrown.

"So who decided on the Post-It note?" Vic asked.

Meredith smiled. "It was about a week or so after the wedding. Unfortunately my best friend had taken a turn for the worse, and it just sort of sparked this 'no time like the present' idea in everyone around. We were actually supposed to go down to the courthouse that day, but being doctors it always happens that a million patients needed constant monitoring, I wanted to be there for my best friend, I had to find time to stop my other best friend from joining the army. I literally had the day mapped out to the second, but life had other plans. In an effort to shut me up, he grabbed the first piece of paper that was in front of him; the Post-It note."

Vic smiled. She knew all about life getting in the way of important moments.

"Anyway, he asked me what we wanted to promise each other. I said 'To love me, even when you hate me.' From there we just went down the list of what we wanted and wrote it down. In the end, the post-it that we both signed said 'To love each other, even when we hate each other. No running. That we'll take care of each other, even when we're old and smelly and senile. This is forever."

Meredith had committed to memory every letter and word on that note. It was still hard to say the final line out loud, knowing that forever for one of them was cut short far too soon.

Vic could sense the difference with that last line. She didn't want to pry. If Meredith wanted to tell her, she would. If not, it wasn't that important to the current situation.

"So did you guys ever get the post-it notarized? A post-it isn't exactly a binding contract."

Meredith shook her head. "The legalities didn't seem important at the time. The Post-It note was more just for us to solidify how we felt about each other. We did do a courthouse marriage after a while though."

"Did something happen that made you do it? Since you said you didn't really care about the legality of it."

Meredith smiled. "Our daughter, actually. Well, she wasn't our daughter yet."

"You adopted?" Vic asked, trying to help herself piece together the entire situation.

"Yes. Our daughter Zola was a patient here when she was a baby when Dr. Karev brought her and a few other kids over from an orphanage in Africa to have surgeries done. Derek and I had been trying to have kids unsuccessfully, and I was about to give up. Zola coming into our lives seemed like fate. However, in order for us to legally adopt her, Derek and I had to prove that we were legally married."

"Hence the courthouse marriage." Vic finally understood the whole story.

"Exactly." Meredith smiled. "For me and Derek the only thing that mattered was how we felt about each other. We were never big wedding people. Heck, if we never adopted Zola we probably never would've gone to the courthouse either. However, I understand that your situation is a little different than mine. Our boss didn't care as much, and there wasn't a lot in the employee handbook, about interns dating department heads. You, on the other hand, need to weigh that into the equation."

"So basically what you're telling me is I should've become a doctor." Vic laughed, wishing the SFD was as relaxed on the rules as Grey+Sloan.

Meredith giggled a little. "I'm just saying, your boss sounds a lot stricter than mine. And unfortunately that means you have a choice to make. Does having your relationship with Chief Ripley be out in the open have the same emotional value as being married, in any form. What I mean is, do your views on one outweigh the other?"

Vic nodded understandingly. "I want to be with Lucas Ripley for the rest of my life. I don't want to have to hide it anymore. That's why I agreed to the marriage based on practicality, but now my friends got in my head and now I don't want practical. I want real."

Meredith smiled and shook her head. "Did you learn nothing from my story?! Who says something real can't also be practical?"

Vic smiled. Meredith was right. This wasn't about appeasing anyone, not HR, not her friends, nobody except her and Lucas. It was up to them to decide what they wanted and who they wanted to be as a couple moving forward.

"Thank you, Dr. Grey." Vic hugged Meredith.

"Please, call me Meredith." She returned the hug. "But next time you need something, just call me. Andy has my number if you need it."

Vic gave a quizzical and annoyed look. If Andy had her number, why hadn't she just given it to her?!

Before Vic walked out the door, Meredith had one more piece of advice. "Oh and Vic, who says you can't have both! I got to have my dream post-it wedding and my courthouse wedding. Nobody says you can have both unicorns and toilet paper."


End file.
